This absolute law of nature is destroying the Republican party.

[shockey80]

If you do not evolve and adapt you will go extinct. The Republican party is doing neither. At best they remain static, most of the time they move backwards. They undo progress.

You can see the damage. The Republican base is shrinking while the democrats base grows. They have driven minority voters away. The minority population is going to grow larger. They are driving young voters away. Life long Conservatives have left the party, there is no place for them.

The Republicans have lost the popular vote 6 out of the last 7 presidential elections.

They now have to cheat to win elections. Gerrymandering, voter ID laws that block people from voting, working with Russia to rig elections. This is not adapting, It is a drowning person flailing, trying to stay alive.

The Republicans have done something else that is very dangerous. Something that could stop them from even attempting to evolve or adapt in the future. They have radicalized their voters to the point of delusion. I have never seen anything like this during my lifetime. Any attempt by the Republican party to moderate, to expand their base to include minorities would be met with fury from their radicalized base. Once someone is radicalized it is almost impossible to cure them. How do you fix a Trump voter?

One could argue the Republican party has already gone extinct. Calling yourself the Republican party does not make it so. Calling them the Tea Party would make more sense.

We may be witnessing an extinction event. An event where the Republican party (Tea Party) could lose power for many years. It will take them years to repair and rebuild a new party, what will take it place no one knows.

The Republican party that was destroyed by the Great Depression did not return until 1980. Reagan brought it back after most of the Americans from that time period had died off or had forgotten. Depending what happens with Trump , the economy, we may be looking at a repeat of history. The Republican party destroying itself.

[brush]

1. Good read. I especially like the analogy to the 40-some-year crash and recovery it took...

for the repugs to come back from the Great Depression they caused and how we may be watching a trump repeat of their implosion in real time now.

[FreepFryer]

2. They are not static, they are avoiding stasis by devolving. It's a valid strategy...

...but not likely to make a difference.

Great post!

[True Blue American]

3. Actualy, The Republican Party

Last edited Sun Dec 30, 2018, 08:33 AM - Edit history (1)

Has regressed. They have moved back to the 1950’s. Eisenhower was in office then. He would reject the party that now exists. War Hawks, debt as far as the eye can see. Simply no plan except to tear down.

Conservative no longer fits.

[Golden Raisin]

10. Today's Republican Party would reject Ike.

He would be a total pariah to them. Way too liberal for today's GOP.

[Cary]

4. We saw this coming

Everyone knew that the Republicans could.not with without voter suppression, gerrymandering, lies and corruption.

Why didn't we adapt better? It seems to me that we played right into their strategy with our own Sanders Clinton dumbassery.

[3_Limes]

22. Was that completely us though?

I'd posit that a significant portion of that friction was introduced by Russians sewing discord in any quarter they could reach. (And don't forget Stein's part in that adventure!)

[Cary]

25. But we allowed it.

I know enough people, personally, who sowed discord and discontent in the name of "revolution" to say with certainty that to a large enough extent we cut off our own nose to spite our face and these same people.are still at it as we speak.

By "it" I mean democrat bashing, "both sides do it," blah blah.

[OMGWTF]

5. They Need to go the Way of the Whigs

[SharonAnn]

8. And the "Know Nothings"

[zaj]

6. They arent Conservatives, they are Regressives.

[Roy Rolling]

17. The technical term (?)

I think they are "reactionaries"--- those so conservative they want to turn back the clock to years before. Not conserve, but tear down what's new and go back to a simpler time...of polio, millions of war dead, starving families across the globe, etc.

You know, what they call "the good old days".

[k8conant]

26. Yes -- reactionaries

I have long known they are not conserving anything.

[erronis]

7. While I agree with the stench of death coming from the gop, their viruses will survive

They may mutate to start talking like Democrats but retain the underlying DNA of the repugnants.

This has already been shown by the infiltration of local and independent organizations by fellow travelers for the rw/tp. I'm sure it's happened within state and federal governments also. And, of course, we have the insertion into the national scene of groups supported by the plutocrats and foreign interests that take a very long view of effecting change.

[Ilsa]

9. Thankfully, a dying breed. I asked one Republican woman,

"What? You want to go back to the Victorian ages where women had no vote, children worked (dangerous jobs) instead of getting an education, and there were no worker protections or rights at all?" She replied that the Victorian ages sounded good to her.

Truly and thankfully, a dying breed.

[Tech]

21. She probably based her knowledge on Victorian romance novels

Which is fine reading as long as you remember it is fiction 😁

[The Genealogist]

27. Hell, I doubt a lot of Republican women would survive a week in the 50s, much less Victorian times

Republicans seem to want to go back to a 1950s that only exists in their imaginations. I see them point to shows like "Leave It To Beaver," as if that show depicted anything like life for most people in that era.

I know a number of conservative women who like to speak their mind. Do they think this would have been allowed, without a good smack across the face? These same women wear jeans and t-shirts or whatever they please. Do they think that would have been allowed in the 1950's without public ridicule? Do they think telling hubby to make his own damned sandwich would end well?

And the Victorian period! Constant dusting due to coal dust. Dangerous wood-burning cook stoves. Boiling water in big tubs and doing laundry in them. All while trussed up in a corset and covered head to toe in dresses and petticoats when it is 90 in the summer. Wallpaper full of arsenic. Drugs full of god only knows what chemicals. A food supply with no oversight as to what is being sold. 60 hour work weeks with crap pay and no vacations.

[Jane Austin]

30. And children who could die of diphtheria

at the drop of a hat.

[lunatica]

11. That's a very interesting and cogent argument

Yet I fear that the Trump phenomena isn’t a real repeat of American Republican history. Even for a Republican he is an aberration. He could do worse than just destroy the Republican Party, though I think the blue wave could actually be the first step in stopping his forward inertial rush to Fascism.

We absolutely cannot rest on our laurels now by assuming all we have to do is let the Republicans destroy themselves for a few generations. Unless we want the cycle to continue we have to be much more conscious of specific long term goals. President Franklin Roosevelt with his New Deal, Abraham Lincoln keeping the country together, and President Obama as a world leader for Democracy had/have this quality of visualizing a far future being built by present action on their part. John Kennedy had it too which is pretty obvious in the space program and the Peace Corps. He and his brother would have led us through a long period of progress probably unprecedented in modern history. We’ll never know. My point is our fight has to be active and proactive.

Just like the Republican think tanks came up with PNAC the Democratic Party should come up with our specific world vision of a future to work towards.

PNAC - Project for the New American Century

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Project_for_the_New_American_Century

Imagine if today’s Progressive leaders started a think tank specifically for our county’s future. And imagine if people who are not politicians were included. I’d love to see that mission statement.

[shockey80]

14. Good post

[BamaRefugee]

12. They will never go away. They have ALWAYS come back STRONGER and more HATE-FILLED than ever...

...and a huge chunk of the American people LOVE IT, every time.

[3_Limes]

24. Unfortunately I have to agree.

While the current incarnation of this face of American society may soon collapse there will always be enough bigots, xenophobes, nationalists, anti-intellectuals and reactionary ideologues in the country to populate the next version of what we see today. And the eternal battle continues.

[Martin Eden]

13. The GOP depends on fundies, deplorables, and know-nothings

As long as there is no shortage of them, the Republican Party has a chance to remain competitive without transforming itself.

[NoMoreRepugs]

15. This. America will NEVER have a shortage of these groups.

All we can do is outnumber and outmaneuver them to take back control of some of the country. Some areas are going to be lost for a few more generations I think.

[BamaRefugee]

19. AND, take a few pages out to their playbook, if they get elected to Governorships, we restrict their

power before they ever get sworn in, we block ANYTHING AND ANYONE that they put forth, and we do an overall SCORCHED EARTH POLICY of legislation that is beneficial for EVERYBODY, and we LOCK THOSE LAWS DOWN, airtight, where it's impossible for them to fuck with them when they inevitably get back in.


And voting rights supression? MANDATORY PRISON SENTENCES for anyone involved.

[NoMoreRepugs]

20. Agree 1000%.

[Roy Rolling]

16. "Conservative"

Republicans are "conservative". They once said they were as long-lasting as Sears Roebuck.

Not really, but the OP is spot on.

[Thunderbeast]

18. In my lifetime...

I have seen many faces of the Republican Party. They include:

Dwight Eisenhauer
John Lindsay
Rockefeller
Oregon Governor Tom McCall
Mark Hatfield

I have also seen:

Ronald Reagan
Richard Nixon
Spirro Agnew
Sarah Palin
Jerry Fallwell
Newt Gingrich...

and many more lothesome critters.

Sadly, the GOP HAS devolved.

This is the new face of Amerocan Republicans.

Anyone see a bright future here?


https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=

[Tech]

23. Go

Every time I see that picture I wonder why these fine gents don't just move to Russia.

[TeamPooka]

28. Republicans are Russian Cossack's now.

[colsohlibgal]

29. Hope So

Without the stupid Electoral College no Dubya no Drumpf. The US Presidential election is the only election I know of where you can get the most votes and lose. It’s ridiculous and should be jettisoned...along with the way we count votes.

[JudyM]

31. Their adaptive mechanisms are solely lying and cheating.

[TlalocW]

32. I remember seeing an article several years ago that was primarily a list of quotes

From various republican muckety-mucks after an election loss, at various levels, and they were all variations of, "We need to learn how to do minority outreach." I would expect the same could be said when it comes to every group that is not old, white rich men and poor white racists. They can't truly, seriously try to appeal to anyone else because they fear losing their base in doing so, and they know that they wouldn't be any good at it for a long time and would lose election after election because they think running one of "them" is good enough. Oh, there're some democrats upset that Obama beat Hillary in the primaries? Well, if we run a woman (at the vice-presidential level of course), they'll flock to us because it's not like women have nuanced political views and concerns. They'll just vote for the ticket that has someone with their sex organs. How could we have lost against that white democrat? We ran a Black guy in a Black district! That's all THEY care about!

Thus the gerrymandering, the voter suppression, the cheating. But even that won't be able to help them after a while.

TlalocW